Recently, the discipline of material science has shown a range of advancements in the area of surface engineering of materials. One such advancement relates to a mechanism known as surface mechanical attrition treatment (SMAT). The SMAT is accomplished by colliding balls with the surface of a material, resulting in the creation of surface imperfections and material strain. Although current SMAT methods are capable of achieving material imperfections, such imperfections transform the surface of the material as well as the deeper sub-surface material layers. However, current SMAT approaches are unable to induce strain on the surface of delicate materials.
Unfortunately, current SMAT and doping methods, such as high energy SMAT and ball milling processes, achieve material doping or strain by impacting the materials in a concentrated and destructive manner that are not effective at creating strain on the surface of thin films or other delicate structures (e.g., nanostructures). Instead, the prevailing SMAT methods effectuate strain throughout the entirety of bulk materials not only the surface of such materials. Other doping methods, such as methods that utilize bending processes to achieve material strain, are also unable to achieve doping or surface strain of delicate materials and often lead to undesired outcomes such as bending the treated films, creating shear strains on the material, or delaminating films from substrates. Accordingly, there is a significant need for technologies and processes to overcome the inability to impose surface strain on delicate materials such as thin films and nanostructures. Furthermore, there is a need for methods to produce surface strain in brittle materials by mass-scale production at efficient costs.
The above-described background relating to SMAT methods for various materials is merely intended to provide a contextual overview of SMAT methods and its current limitations, and is not intended to be exhaustive. Other context regarding traditional SMAT methods may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.